Deuced difficult

"I guess Andy Murray must be the best British tennis player ever," I say, as Susan and I watch him playing Djokovic in the Australian Open.

"What about those players of yesteryear they're always on about, like Fred Perry?" she asks.

"They make those guys up," I tell her. "Perry was actually an American explorer, who claimed to be the first man to get to the North Pole, though he probably didn't."

"So how come you get all these Fred Perry T-shirts at tennis tournaments then?" she asks. 

"Dunno. Maybe it's thermal gear for Arctic explorers and they're heading out on an expedition after the game."

"You're talking bollocks again, aren't you?" she says, patting my arm.

"No, but I might be confused. I've started four-limb independence at the drumming. When each of your arms and legs is learning a different beat, it doesn't leave many brain cells for intelligent chat. It's what computer geeks call a processor-intensive activity."

"Is that why most drummers look like morons?" she wonders. "They don't have any spare brain cells to close their mouths or wipe drool off their chins?"

"No that's 40 years of loud music, exotic substances and unsavoury blow-jobs in dark alleyways. Most of their brain cells are dead now. They're drumming on body memory. It's different at the start. Here, let me demonstrate basic four-limb independence and you'll see what I mean."

"I don't want to see what you mean," she says. "I'm trying to watch Andy Murray getting gubbed in a hot country, far far away."

"Won't take a moment," I insist, tapping the floor in the basic rock rhythm. "See, your left foot plays the quarter notes on the high-hat, while your right bangs the bass drum on notes 1 and 3.

"Meanwhile your left hand hits the snare on beats 2 and 4 and your right is playing eighth notes on whatever you fancy - ride cymbal, high-hat, tom-tom."

"Or in your case right knee?" she says.

"Or indeed right knee if that's all you've got."

"I don't need to practice four-limb independence," she says, standing up and starting to move rhythmically. "I'm a natural. Look, I've got it already."

"I think you'll find that's the hokey-cokey," I tell her.